Importance of Funding the UN

Overview

Since the UN’s founding in 1945, the United States has been the organization’s largest funder. As a permanent member of the Security Council and host of UN Headquarters, the U.S. arguably has more clout than other UN member states, and its leadership in providing financial support to the organization is a reflection of that influential role.

Why should the U.S. pay its UN dues in-full?

Strong and consistent U.S. engagement with the UN is critical to advancing our nation’s foreign policy, national security, economic, and humanitarian priorities on a number of fronts.

From peacekeeping missions that promote stability in various parts of the world, to its work on issues as varied as nonproliferation, counterterrorism, human rights, and development, the UN is a force-multiplier for the U.S., addressing global challenges that—due to their complexity and cost—the U.S. can’t possibly be expected to confront alone.

The UN is a bargain for American taxpayers:

While the UN’s work covers a broad array of issues and impacts U.S. interests in virtually every corner of the globe, the total amount of U.S. contributions to the UN consumes a very small portion of our nation’s annual budget. Overall, only 1.4% of the federal budget is devoted to foreign aid (including contributions to the UN). Our peacekeeping and regular budget dues account for just 0.2% of the annual U.S. federal budget.

UN Peacekeeping missions are in the interest of U.S. national security and also extremely cost effective:

While the U.S. is the largest single contributor to the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets (responsible for paying 22% and 28% of these budgets respectively), other UN member states pay the vast majority of costs associated with the activities funded by these assessments. Moreover, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the U.S. ultimately has final say over the size of the peacekeeping budget—by far the largest of all of the UN system’s assessed budgets—since no peacekeeping mission can be authorized, expanded, or withdrawn from the field without U.S. consent.

Funding cuts to the UN would compromise American leadership:

When the U.S. fails to pay its peacekeeping and regular budget dues, it jeopardizes UN programs that are manifestly in our national interests and negatively impacts our ability to advance our agenda at the UN. In order to continue reaping the benefits of engagement with the UN, and to be able to influence the organization’s overall direction, it is critical that we make our dues payments on-time and in-full.

Moreover, a bipartisan poll conducted in January of 2017 found that more than 67 percent of Americans agree the U.S. should pay its dues to the UN. In regards to UN Peacekeeping, more than 70 percent of Americans agreed the U.S. should pay its dues.